Securities Filings, Brown Rudnick, Blank Rome: Business of Law

April 10 (Bloomberg) -- Federal securities class action
filings decreased by about 10 percent last year from 2011,
PricewaterhouseCoopers found in its 17th annual Securities
Litigation Study published yesterday. There were 172 cases in
2012, compared to 191 cases in 2011, with a significant drop in
the fourth quarter of 2012.

“2012 was a year that implied no clear direction as to
where regulators or shareholders may focus in the future,”
Patricia Etzold, securities litigation partner with PwC said in
a statement. We are at “a crossroads, waiting for a sign. 2013
looks to be a year that could go in many different directions,”
she said.

The first three quarters of 2012 saw an average of 46
cases, while the fourth quarter saw a dramatic decrease to 33
cases -- the lowest level since the 30 cases filed in the second
quarter of 2009, according to the survey.

The presidential election and the “fiscal cliff” may have
affected the last quarter, along with Hurricane Sandy, according
to the survey.

Financial crisis filings, China-based companies and, to a
lesser extent, merger & acquisition transactions, saw
significant decreases during 2012. There were three financial-crisis-related cases filed in all of 2012 after 178 cases were
filed from 2008 to 2011.

The number of settlements and their total value also
decreased in 2012. After a 26 percent decline in the number of
settled federal securities class action cases from 2010 to 2011,
cases settled in 2012 decreased by seven percent. The total
value of settlements in 2012 was the lowest amount since 2002,
according to the survey.

To see the survey, click here.

Firm News

Brown Rudnick Opens West Coast Office With Boutique Merger

Brown Rudnick LLP expanded to the West Coast by combining
with 10-lawyer law firm Rus Miliband & Smith, a commercial
litigation boutique in Irvine, California.

The move gives Brown Rudnick’s 200 lawyers an Orange County
office, its first presence in California and sixth U.S. office.
The firm also has overseas offices in Dublin and London.

“Our new Orange County office not only enables us to serve
our Southern California and West Coast clients more effectively,
it also complements our strength in the technology and life
sciences sectors and opens a gateway to Asia where our clients
increasingly are engaged in business,” Joseph F. Ryan, chairman
and chief executive officer of Brown Rudnick said in a
statement.

Among those clients that helped motivate the new office is
Hologic Inc., a health devices company and Brown Rudnick’s
biggest client, the law firm said. The company is headquartered
in the Boston suburbs but has a large presence in southern
California, William Baldiga, litigation and restructuring,
managing director said in an interview.

Baldiga said that the firm picked Rus Miliband because of
its tight practice focus. “They do what they do really well--
they don’t dabble. They are a first class commercial litigation
firm, offering the highest quality, which is a perfect platform
to expand.” Baldiga expects the office to double in the next
year through lateral hires.

Ronald Rus, a founding partner of Rus Miliband, said the
firm had been approached by many national firms over the past
few years but were won over by Brown Rudnick because of its
collaborative culture.

“Brown Rudnick’s clients are institutional,” Rus said in
an interview. “They are not a bunch of lawyers trying to
protect clients. A client’s matter is given attention by whoever
the best lawyer is however the problem needs to be solved.”

Blank Rome Chairman Emeritus Fred Blume Dies

Blank Rome LLP’s chairman emeritus Fred Blume, died April 8
after a long illness, the firm said in a statement.

“Fred’s tenure with Blank Rome lasted close to half a
century,” Alan Hoffman, co-chairman and managing partner, said
in a statement. “During his time with us, he demonstrated a
fierce dedication to his work, his community and his family.”

Blume, 72, was a mergers and acquisitions lawyer, who
joined the firm in 1967. He was administrative partner of the
firm and then managing partner and CEO from 2003 to 2006.

The firm said he played a key role in its expansion,
notably into New York City through a merger with Tenzer
Greenblatt and later in Washington through mergers with Wigman
Cohen & Meyers and Dyer Ellis & Joseph.

Blume’s family will have a memorial service today in
Wynnewood, Pennsylvania, according to the statement. In lieu of
flowers, the family requests that donations be made to City Year
Greater Philadelphia, the University of Pennsylvania Law School
or the Fox School of Business at Temple University.

Moves

Latham Snags Clifford Chance’s Global Private Equity Head

Clifford Chance LLP’s global head of private equity, David
Walker, is leaving the firm to join Latham & Watkins LLP.

“We are delighted at the prospect of David joining our
team. His arrival marks another milestone in the expansion of
our vibrant and growing London office, which is approaching 250
lawyers,” Latham & Watkins London office managing partner Nick
Cline said in an e-mail.

Walker, who specializes in private equity and venture
capital work, fundraisings and general mergers and acquisitions,
led Clifford Chance teams advising Equistone Partners Europe on
the sale of Global Blue last year. He also led the team that
represented Carlyle in connection with Glory Limited’s offer to
acquire Talaris. He has been a partner at Clifford Chance since
2000.

“We thank David for his contribution to Clifford Chance
and wish him the best for the future,” Simon Tinkler, London
head of the corporate practice, said in an e-mail.

Walker will join a firm that already works with one of his
key clients across the Atlantic. Latham & Watkins has advised
Carlyle on U.S. deals including its purchase of DuPont Co.’s
auto-paint unit for $4.9 billion, in August and United
Technologies Corp.’s Hamilton Sundstrand industrial unit in
July.

News

Obama’s Labor Board Nominees Include Critic of 2011 Boeing Case

President Barack Obama picked a Democrat and two
Republicans to the U.S. labor board, including a lawyer who in
2011 faulted the agency’s prosecution of Boeing Co. for opening
an airplane factory in South Carolina.

Obama yesterday nominated Republicans Harry Johnson, a
lawyer with Arent Fox LLP in Los Angeles who covers management-side labor and employment law, and Philip Miscimarra, a partner
in the labor and employment group of Morgan Lewis & Bockius LLP,
in Chicago, for the National Labor Relations Board. Chairman
Mark Gaston Pearce, whose term end in August, was renominated.

If all three are confirmed by the Senate, the NLRB will be
at full strength and without the uncertainty created when a
federal court in January said three 2012 appointees were
“constitutionally invalid.” The administration has appealed to
the Supreme Court. Republicans have sought to stop the board
from issuing decisions until the legal status is resolved.

“He’s trying to make them an offer they can’t refuse,”
Gary Chaison, a labor-relations professor at Clark University in
Worcester, Massachusetts, said in a telephone interview. “He’s
come back to an incredibly contentious issue, but he’s come back
to it in a fairly conciliatory way.”

Obama drew fire from business groups and Republicans in
February when he nominated Democrats Sharon Block and Richard
Griffin. Their 2012 appointments were ruled invalid because
Obama had acted when the Senate wasn’t in recess, the U.S. Court
of Appeals in Washington ruled Jan. 25. To prevent Obama from
making appointments, House and Senate Republicans refused to
declare a recess. The Senate then held so-called pro-forma
sessions every few days that lasted less than 2 minutes.

Miscimarra, a labor lawyer invited to testify before a
House panel in South Carolina on June 17, 2011, criticized the
board’s acting general counsel, Lafe Solomon, for issuing a
complaint against Boeing in an unfair labor practice case tied
to building a factory in South Carolina, a state where laws
forbid collective bargaining agreements that require union
membership.

“The board’s general counsel acts like a traffic cop,”
Miscimarra told the House Committee on Oversight and Government
Reform. “But traffic citations don’t routinely involve
impounding the car for five to 10 years. And that’s the
practical effect when an NLRB complaint challenges major
investment decisions.”

For more, click here.

‘Wild West’ of Lawsuit Funders Supports Divorcees to Soldiers

Jane Ong thought she had a good case to sue her accountants
in Singapore over asset valuations during a two-decade divorce
fight. Short of money, she persuaded a litigation funder -- an
investor that pays for a lawsuit in return for a share of the
proceeds -- to help, Bloomberg News’ Kit Chellel reports.

Buttonwood Legal Capital Ltd. funded Ong’s claim in the
country for about two years before pulling out in 2012, she
says, leaving her with legal bills she couldn’t pay.

“They left me again owing money,” the 52-year-old London
resident said. “This was meant to be good for me.”

Litigation funding is a fast-growing industry that backs
some of the U.K.’s biggest lawsuits. Funders have invested in an
ex-soldier’s $1.6 billion claim against Gulf Keystone Petroleum
Ltd., and a class action by thousands of Royal Bank of Scotland
Group Plc shareholders over the lender’s 2008 rights issue.

Supporters say the industry improves access to justice by
allowing people who couldn’t normally afford it to sue wealthier
opponents. If a case is successful, both investors and litigants
win, sharing any compensation. When things go wrong and disputes
break out, the situation isn’t so clear.

“The litigation funding market still has a long way to go
in its development,” said Michelle Duncan, a London lawyer with
Paul Hastings LLP. “At the moment it’s still pretty
unsophisticated and is also unregulated -- it’s a bit like the
Wild West.” She said the firm’s London office hasn’t worked on
cases funded by outside parties.

The purchase of CompuCom, which had $2.3 billion of gross
revenue in 2012, is expected to close in the second quarter,
according to a statement yesterday from the Dallas-based
company. Court Square Capital, based in New York, and IIM
Acquisition Corp., an affiliate of Court Square, bought the
company in 2007 for $628 million.

Thomas H. Lee has backed business processing and managed IT
services firms in the past. The Boston-based firm in 2010
invested in Systems Maintenance Services, a provider of managed
IT maintenance services to corporations for hardware
infrastructure. It also backed Fidelity National Information
Services Inc., a provider of banking and payments technologies.

Video

‘Gray Market’ Lawyer: Congress Won’t Change Copyright Laws

Joshua Rosenkranz, head of the supreme court and appellate
litigation practice at Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP, talks
with Bloomberg Law’s Spencer Mazyck about obtaining a landmark
victory from the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of his client,
Supap Kirtsaeng, in one of the top business and consumer cases
in the court’s nine-month term, Kirtsaeng v. John Wiley & Sons.
On March 19, 2013, the high court ruled that textbooks and other
goods made abroad can be resold in the U.S. without violating
American copyright law, bolstering the multibillion-dollar
“gray market.”

Rosenkranz, in this “Rainmakers” episode, also discusses
the implications of the court’s decision for copyright holders,
publishers and manufacturers, which say their U.S. sales are
being undercut.

This is a Bloomberg podcast. To download, watch or listen
to this report now, click here.

Litigation

Ex-NFL Players’ Lawyers Don’t Need a Briefing on Concussions

As one of eight brothers who played college football,
Derriel McCorvey says he has the game in his blood, Bloomberg
News’ Jef Feeley and Sophia Pearson report. Now the Louisiana
lawyer is trying to make the National Football League bleed over
claims that it concealed data about the dangers of concussions.

The ex-Louisiana State University safety is part of a group
of plaintiffs’ lawyers in cases filed by ex-NFL players and
their families. They argued in a Philadelphia hearing yesterday
that the league can’t claim immunity under its collective-bargaining agreements. The NFL is asking a judge to toss the
cases, arguing the claims should be heard by arbitrators, not
juries.

“The league is pretty powerful,” McCorvey said last year
in an interview. “Most people don’t have a good chance of
taking on the league.” Still the players’ cases are strong
enough that a judge may “reject the NFL’s arguments” for
dismissal, the attorney said last week.

Former NFL stars such as Miami Dolphins receiver Mark Duper
and Arizona Cardinals running back Lyvonia “Stump” Mitchell
allege league officials knew at least since the 1970s that
concussions posed long-term health risks and didn’t warn
players, coaches or trainers. The league is facing suits filed
by more than 4,000 former players, according to court records.

NFL officials failed to take substantial steps to address
the risks until 1994, when the league created a Mild Traumatic
Brain Injury committee, the players say.

Brian McCarthy, an NFL spokesman, said the league is
committed to player safety and is prepared to counter arguments
that it downplayed or hid concussion risks.

The cases have been consolidated before U.S. District Judge
Anita Brody in federal court in Philadelphia for the exchange of
pretrial evidence. Brody will decide whether the players’ claims
can proceed to trial.

McCorvey, a former second-team All-Southeastern Conference
safety at LSU, is lining up on the plaintiffs’ steering
committee with David Buchanan, a former University of Delaware
all-conference offensive lineman; Mike McGlamry, an ex-Wake
Forest University quarterback; and Gene Locks, a former
Princeton University quarterback.

Opposing them in the concussion cases are defense lawyers
Beth Wilkinson and Brad Karp, partners in New York’s Paul,
Weiss, Rifkin, Wharton & Garrison. Wilkinson was hired last year
to lead the Federal Trade Commission’s antitrust investigation
of Google Inc.

The NFL’s dismissal motion was argued yesterday by Paul
Clement, a former U.S. solicitor general, McCarthy said. Clement
recently defended the Defense of Marriage Act, enacted by
Congress in 1996, before the Supreme Court.

For more, click here.

To contact the reporter on this story:
Elizabeth Amon in Brooklyn, New York, at
eamon2@bloomberg.net.